Tag: #booknerd

I have been doing a lot of spiritual reading lately for groups I’m part of and I keep seeing the phrase “most of us.”

Usually, when someone uses the phrase “most of us” in spiritual reading it is not because they are about to give most of us a compliment.

“Most of us” are not holy like the saints were.

“Most of us” do not pray enough.

“Most of us” don’t understand the beauty of the Mass.

“Most of us” don’t take the hard road.

I live in the world just like you. I meet and interact with the very souls intended in the phrase “most of us.” However, I do not see the same phenomenon described by the spiritual authors. I often find that as much as I respect some of these authors and even benefit from their teaching I cannot share the attitude they take toward the nameless masses. Because I know for a fact that to God there are no nameless masses or generalized groups of ordinary people- God calls each of us by name. He knows every hair on our head. He loves us each profoundly, sincerely and uniquely as the work of His own Hands. When God looks at the world He doesn’t see trends or demographics, He does not gaze at “most of us” but into the heart and soul of each and every man. He knows us perfectly and loves us perfectly not in spite of our weaknesses but in the midst of them. And I am convinced that the revelation of His love for each of us will be infinite and without limit, all the more so if we have been seeking Him too.

When I think about my faith I do not think of most of us, the other masses who are not as good and may never be anything of consequence to earth (as if there was a correlation to heavenly glory). I tend to think of all of us and our universal call to be holy. I think of all of us in our searching for a purpose of life that I believe can only be found if you accept the invitation to know God, love God, and serve God as well as your neighbor.

I do not think that holiness is something that will or ought to elude most of us. I think it is something intended for all of us that requires nothing from us but our “yes” to the transformative love that God seeks to give us. We are called to seek, the success of our efforts to grow in holiness is a product of God’s abundant grace, either the graces needed to overcome our own natures or the grace to keep going when we don’t.

Perhaps most of us will be intimidated when we first start to think of this. Most of us will feel like running and hiding. Most of us will fail many times at loving God, self, and neighbor. Most of us will have moments of doubt and temptation, where we feel like quitting the whole endeavor…

But I believe each of us can become the person God calls us to be because He loves us, He will give us every grace we need in His perfect timing (and not a moment before!) but perhaps most especially because He gives us each other.

My walk with God received a unique twist around 2014, I had an interior conversion within my practicing of the Catholic faith and that twist was a burning desire not just to get to Heaven myself but to take absolutely everyone with me. Because I realized that as much as real love can frighten people at the outset by its demands of selflessness, sacrifice, and suffering, to view love as sheer suffering and misery is to see only half the picture. While it is true that in love another’s suffering can become your own suffering, in love their joy also becomes your joy.

So not only will I be “happy” when I get to Heaven by the mercy of God (I use quotations because any word expressing happiness I know will be an inadequate understatement) but when you get there and experience this “happiness” for yourself I will feel it as profoundly as I did my own because I love you and pray for you constantly.Each and every one of you.

Not only do I love Mother Angelica, I really really like her too. She passed away semi-recently and how I wish I could have met her, it will have to wait until heaven now.

Mother Angelica is the foundress of EWTN, a Catholic TV network but more importantly (to me) she was the first spiritual mother/guide I ever had. I found her as a questioning 19-year-old by reading a book that is the first on my “Top Ten Life Changing Reads” List, Mother Angelica’s Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality.

I recently picked up this classic yet again (I have reread it too many times to count) and it is still as great as it ever was. That is my personal test of a great book. If you pick it up and like reading it again even better than you did the first time, then it’s a keeper and deserves the coveted spot on the shelf (never enough shelf space in my room so I mean coveted in a fairly literal sense).

The reason I say it is great is because it is short, easy to read, but packs a punch to the point where a paragraph can turn your whole world and mind inside out. Mother Angelica was a holy lady who dedicated her life to helping others grow in holiness too and one of the best things she does is make it seem so possible for absolutely everyone. It’s enough to give hope even to a sinner like me and that’s how you know it’s deeply rooted in the gospel and not just the empty sayings and “feel-good” euphemisms that plague our age.

And it was reading one of her gems that inspired me to write this particular blog post because it hit me in an especially profound way and I hoped that maybe someone else would find it useful.

She was talking about discouragement and in the context discussing Christ’s crucifixion she wrote the following:

He died with no valleys in his soul, no crevices where resentment, and hatred, or anger, or self-pity could hide and warp and disfigure the soul.

This impressed me because, first of all, doesn’t contemplating that just make you want to love Jesus?

Second of all, each of those temptations she listed I find easy. I wish I didn’t but being a person who struggles against a proud nature I find that those crevices come to me rather naturally.

However, I confess I often forget that each vice has a corresponding virtue. For example, resentment and hatred can be defeated by forgiveness. Anger can be overcome by mercy. Self-pity can be conquered by humility and trust in God.

This knowledge is important because it is this truth that reminds me that I see the world the wrong way. Whenever I am put through trials I tend to see it first as a trial and sometimes (particularly when there are many trials at once) I want a respite from the myriad imperfections that I notice the trials are bringing out in me.

And while it would be easy to sit back and throw my fist at the heavens and ask “why God?” the answer struck me very clearly. It’s because I want to be holy which is just another way of saying I want to love not as humans do but as God does. I don’t want those valleys and crevices to remain in my soul. And so God in His love and His sense of humor gives me lots of opportunities not just to avoid sin by managing to hold my temper or not judge, but also to put into practice it’s opposite virtues like kindness and compassion.

But it’s funny to think that up in Heaven we won’t be glorified for the things on earth we were good at and did well, but instead glorifying God through the things we did poorly and asked Him to do for us in His love. And it makes me sad that those who aren’t “religious” or who feel stuck in a rut sometimes have that fear of approaching God because I’m convinced that in His eyes the greater the struggle the greater the triumph of merciful love.